


UltraViolet

by sapphireswimming



Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: Alternate Universe, Blind Sam Manson, Casper High (Danny Phantom), Friendship, Gen, Gen Work, Ghost Hunting, On Hiatus, Pre-Canon, Protective Mr. Lancer, School, Suspense, The Accident (Danny Phantom)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-12-16
Updated: 2014-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:46:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 12,791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26415871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sapphireswimming/pseuds/sapphireswimming
Summary: The Casper High administration refuses to do anything about the reports of a ghost flying through the classrooms. Even though everyone in Lancer's class saw it.Including Sam Manson.Who is blind.
Relationships: Danny Fenton & Tucker Foley & Sam Manson
Comments: 1
Kudos: 11





	1. Stronghold

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Apricity](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24083149) by [sapphireswimming](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sapphireswimming/pseuds/sapphireswimming). 



> Originally posted here: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/9931787/1/UltraViolet
> 
> This is Alternate Universe in that absolutely nobody knows Danny's secret, the ghosts are probably a little more malevolent than in the show, and Sam is blind. Timeline begins just after the accident.
> 
> There are more sentence-fics set in this AU in [Apricity Chapters 15, 16, and 21](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24083149/chapters/58000612)

Lancer paused for a just a second, registering the change in temperature. Not drastic, just a few degrees, but the shift was definitely noticeable if you were looking for it. And he was, had been humming with tension all morning as he waited for the first sign that it was becoming colder.

So had the rest of the students in his class, apparently, because even though he was careful not to show any change in his expression as he continued to write on the chalkboard, he knew they had noticed it as well. He could hear the moment when everyone froze in their places and there wasn't a sound in the room, everyone petrified as they understood what this might mean. There was a long moment where the white chalk clicking as he continued to put his outline up on the board was the only noise.

Then everyone started whispering frantically to their neighbors, partly in panic, partly with reassurance, partly trying to make sure that they weren't imagining things in all of the craziness that had been their day.

There was no way he could stop them, so Lancer didn't even try. But he did continue lecturing, hoping to be a soothing voice that any students listening to him could use as an anchor as they clutched the sides of their desks with white knuckles.

Maybe the heater had just conked out. Maybe someone had opened up window one of the windows just a crack. But it was clear from the intense discussions behind him that no one believed that was the case. He didn't either, to be quite honest.

He just didn't like thinking about the alternative.

But like it or not, he was the adult in the room. He was in charge of the safety of everyone here. And if the temperature was dropping… if that meant that it was going to happen again… he needed to be ready… to prepare somehow…

If only he knew what in _The Good Earth_ he could do. It wasn't like he was an expert in dealing with threats in a classroom; he was merely a vice principal and English teacher in a small community so ordinary and well connected that would most likely never have to deal with any emotionally disturbed gun wielders in a second Columbine. Casper High had never gone through more than a tornado or fire drill in all earnestness. His only knowledge of emergencies of this kind was purely academic. And what could that do against an actual threat to the twenty children under his care?

Not that he knew what the threat was, either. Not really. That would make this easier. Knowing what they were up against. Knowing that they were actually and truly up against something.

_Something_ had shown up earlier. That could not be disputed no matter how much he wanted to disbelieve what he had seen. His senses had not lied to him. He had to credit his own memories and the memories of the class now worried that history was about to repeat itself.

So the thing that had appeared in his classroom earlier, that flickering form of sickly oozing green and glowing red eyes—stuff straight out of the nightmares he'd tried to never have by avoiding every horror movie and Poe story he could get away with not reading—might be coming back. And this time it might do more than stare at them, upturn the closest desk, and disappear.

But if it had been real, then what could he possibly do against such a creature? A figment of imagination that could dent walls? A monster or a ghost or whatever it was. It wasn't like there was an instruction manual for encounters of this kind. Not like the fire extinguisher would probably do anything to it but that was he had at his disposal. And since it could appear and disappear at will, evacuating the building wouldn't help their situation any.

If it was coming, though, and if this was the only warning that they would get, he needed to act on it. If the timeline held up from the first incident, there would be another minute or two of steadily decreasing temperatures before it showed up. He had to keep them calm. Together. Safe. Somehow.

Lancer realized then that his stick of chalk was inactive and he had been staring blankly at the board for a minute while the class watching him in concern. Clearing his throat, he turned back around to his students and asked for Mr. Baxter to run to tell the principal of what was occurring. Perhaps she would have some plan of action laid out since the reports of panic and chaos had flooded her officer a few hours before, despite the lack of concrete evidence that something had actually been awry.

Then he gave up the last pretense that class would continue on as usual in favor of unhooking the nearest fire extinguisher from the wall and examining the correct procedure when using it. Not that he could really follow a correct procedure when he wasn't even going to use it against a fire, but he might as well make sure it was effective. Or as effective as it could possibly be.

His class soon realized what was happening and abandoned their books in favor of curling up in their seats or calling their parents or forming small huddles around the room. Thankfully no one was quite oblivious enough to think that this was a get-out-of-class-free card and they had the right to start wandering the halls. But given the looks on their faces when he glanced up, none of them wanted to be in the halls alone. This was their best chance if something was going to show up. All together with a somewhat armed teacher and help possibly on the way. And in a few minutes, the threat might even have passed them by. Only time would tell so they were free to pass it as best they could control their nerves.

Miss Sanchez was pale as she sat in the center of a circle of clinging teenage girls trying not to yell at any untoward noise as if the lights had just been shut off. Miss Grey looked as if she was about to twist the straps of her backpack into shreds.

Across the room, the football players tapped their pencils on the desktops and bounced one foot and then the other as they shared furtive glances and waited for Mr. Baxter to return from his errand.

And right in the front row, Mr. Foley sat on the floor next to Ms. Manson's desk, holding her hand to anchor her somehow to this world of chaotic sounds of which she could see nothing. Her lips were pressed together, but she looked as if she did not need any extra assistance, thank _All Creatures Great and Small_ , because he simply couldn't afford to give it if he was going to need to protect everyone here. But she was in good enough hands for now. Tucker was a smart enough kid to know not to run off and do anything foolish at such a juncture. And he wasn't complaining about the death grip his friend kept on his arm.

Lancer flipped over the instruction packet and flicked his eyes across the page looking for pertinent information when the blond football player came back with the news that two other teachers had reported a similar drop in temperature, the janitor was checking to make sure that it wasn't just something wrong with the furnace, and they were all to continue on as Lancer thought best.

Looking between pockets of scared students and his meager weaponry, he knew his time was growing short. The temperature was dropping even further and if something was going to happen, if this nightmare really was going to materialize, it was going to do so soon.

"Alright, listen up, people!" he said, taking in every pair of eyes that shot up toward him. "We're going to stay here and we're going to stay calm. Everyone move to the back of the room and act as if this were a severe weather drill. You can bring your phones, but leave everything else at your desks." The class began to murmur but he was not done speaking. "I'll be up here with the fire extinguisher. If something's going to show up, it will be in the next few minutes. If not, then the janitor just needs to hurry up fixing the heater and we'll get back to business as normal. Either way, this will all be over soon. I just need you all to keep calm and do as I say and we will figure this out, okay?"

Heads nodded and then people began to move toward the far wall, furthest away from the windows. Miss Manson was one of the last to move, considering her slower pace, and given a little bit wider of a berth as the class migrated, led by the arm by Mr. Foley. They finished the short trip and took their places wedged in the corner of the room.

Lancer lugged up the red canister to one of the last rows of chairs, close enough to his students that he would be protecting anything that came at them and far enough away that he might still fend off an attack before it got to them.

He took a deep breath and steadied himself. He was well aware of the tension running high, of the conversations in hushed voices. Of Miss Manson sightlessly clutching onto her friend's arm like it was the only thing keeping her together and the way he held her hand confirmed the sentiment. How the boy whispered that it would be okay and that everything would turn out fine but she shook her head and how he thought he took her side of the argument, given that he was about to fight an apparition with a fire extinguisher.

He heard how the students comforted each other with soft noises, words that probably wouldn't make sense if they were all in their right minds, if they weren't waiting for an impossible creature to come kill them.

Others tried to keep the topic of conversation as normal as possible. Some girls talking about a party they were planning… the football team complaining about how hard practices had been this week… the band members discussing the merits of this year's choice of performance pieces…

"Think of something else, Sam. Just… anything else… it will help," Tucker encouraged from the end of the huddled group.

"Okay," Sam whispered shakily, fisting his shirt in her hands. "When can Danny come back to school?"

"Mrs. F said the doctors were going to keep him overnight for observation, but it sounded like he would be okay to come home after that. I don't think anyone knows what really happened, but I don't think he's going to grow two heads or anything, so that's good," he chuckled.

Lancer pulled his attention back to planning his line of defence as the temperature continued to plummet until he could see his breath. It was his job to make sure that when Mr. Fenton did come home from the hospital, he would still have a homeroom class to come back to.


	2. Accident

Two days later, school was still in session, but Lancer's classroom was missing more students than there were sitting at their desks.

He was not surprised by the drastic loss in attendance.

The school administration might not believe that anything supernatural had floated through their classroom and terrorized his English class. The principal might not be able to shut everything down for a few days as they investigated the cracked cinder blocks in the back of the room, or the shattered window, or the fact that the thermometer was perpetually stuck as about fifteen degrees colder than the actual temperature of the classroom as confirmed by the repairmen Casper High had finally called in due to numerous complaints about the boiler throughout the week.

They might not have had a good explanation for why an otherwise set and stolid teacher suddenly went crazy spouting nonsense about _something_ appearing out of nowhere and attacking his class in the middle of a school day. They certainly didn't have a reasonable explanation for why he felt the need to use up the contents of an entire fire extinguisher before denting it beyond repair when even he readily agreed that no one had sounded the alarm for any smoke or flames.

There was only so much they could turn a blind eye to, but honestly, the administration had no clue what to do with a situation like this. Especially since the teacher in question was also the vice principal of the school and did have the authority to go to the county level with complaints of negligence should they turn a completely blind eye and ignore his concerns.

But honestly, what could they do? He thought that there had been a _ghost_. A ghost!

There wasn't a course of action laid out for in case of ghostly emergencies because such entities simply did not exist. So how was the administration supposed to be expected to made preparations against them on a teacher's say so.

Perhaps launching an investigation into the purity of the drinking water would better serve the community and be a better use of time and resources. First the Fentons and now this…

Because, really, the hardest part to believe about this entire thing was that it was Lancer bringing up the claim. He had always been so dependable amidst the insanity of the high school. They could well understand how the teenagers of his class would corroborate the story. There would be no easier way of getting out of class than to have the school shut down for a week because they had been telling ghost stories. But for the teacher not only to back up this story, but to be the foremost proponent of it was something they didn't know what to do with.

Maybe Lancer was just overwhelmed and his class was taking advantage of the situation to request days off. If that was the case, they couldn't cave. Especially not to something as silly as a cry of "ghosts!" because what would the parents think of the reason their children had been deprived of a fine government funded public education for a week? Or more, at the rate the requests were flying into the office.

They decided that perhaps Lancer could be allowed to crack and lose it every once in a while. Maybe that was even a good thing, to let him let it all out in a blast of fire hydrant steam instead of having a midlife crisis and taking off for a week while they scrambled to find a substitute and a way to fix things. They could grant him that leeway of a crazy day or two. So they ignored his protestations that something had happened and something needed to be done to prevent it from happening again.

Classes were to continue as usual.

Minus, of course, the dozen or so students who had managed to stay home "sick." Lancer's classroom had more students missing than were present. It was the one time he didn't mind, though. He'd kept his eyes and ears glued to the news— radio in the car and bath, TV during dinner and as he fell asleep at night— but so far, nothing had been reported elsewhere in Amity. It seemed that being home would be safer than attending the school for now.

But it didn't keep Lancer teaching with one eye to the window and every nerve taught for the slightest suspicion that something out of the normal was about to happen, in which case, he had absolutely no compunction in dropping everything and moving the class to the back of the room or the janitor's storage closet across the hall.

They had gotten used to moving quickly. It was almost becoming a system, but no one really minded the breaks in the lesson. Not when the possibility of being thrown into the wall like the desk had been was a very real alternative. It was so hard to concentrate on the lesson when you knew that at any second you might need to evacuate that they weren't really advancing studies or preparations for tests even while they were all sitting and Lancer was still lecturing.

He would give up even that pretense entirely if that didn't mean that the class would soon descend into an undefendable chaotic mess. And who knew, perhaps they would be able to learn some basics of literary analysis before the year was out, despite everything.

But until the rest of the school administration saw sense and realized that there was actually something happening and they needed to do something about it other than turning a blind eye and sending out repairmen, the entire situation was in Lancer's hands alone. And whatever makeshift weaponry he could whip up.

He had gotten creative. Commandeering the fire extinguisher, of course. He didn't imagine that the smoke had really scared the thing away, but he had exhausted the spray and when it cleared, nothing was there anymore so the English teacher figured that it was worth another shot. Maybe the thing was just looking for easy targets and with the students concealed, it would leave them alone. So he ensured that he had unlimited access to full canisters no matter how much Ishiyama complained.

Next was the long unused pointer that had lain like a forgotten pool cue in the corner behind his desk. One of the kids from the track and field team who was pretty handy with a javelin was set in charge of that particular weapon.

He'd persuaded Tetslaff to lend a few of his students a few select items that would normally have never been allowed outside of the gymnasium. Things which she usually held under strict lock and key. Or that had been left unclaimed in the lost and found so long that their owners had probably graduated years ago and had therefore been left languishing forever. The Vice Principal's authority, however, meant that they were allowed a few things in case of emergency.

None of the teenagers in his class were fooling around. The bullies were just as scared as their normal victims, because who knew what would come around the corner, or through the wall, at any moment? It was good to be prepared, even if their only weapons couldn't really be considered weapons at all: an air horn from the swim invitational they held each year, a transparent red plastic whistle, two ankle weights whose leather straps were threatening to crack in half, and a rusting dumbbell.

What they would do with such an assortment of things, Lancer did not know, but he had learned over the past two days that his class was resourceful and ready to do whatever it took to keep the ghosts at bay, no matter what anyone else thought. They were ready for anything at a moment's notice.

So when the door to the classroom opened in the middle of their lecture, there were a few gasps and squeaks of fright and nearly everyone was already out of their seat scuttling toward the back walls or reaching for their designated task before they realized that there was no need for alarm. A ghost wouldn't be opening the door anyway— it would just zoom in with only cooler temperatures for warning.

A very familiar face appeared from around the door frame, a confused look on his face as he took in the odd behavior of the class… Valerie wielding a pool stick like she knew what she was doing with it and Star fumbling with the lanyard of a whistle she had been about to blow and Nathan hiding under his desk and their teacher ignoring all of it.

Danny Fenton walked further into the room, catching sight of his two best friends in the front row. Tucker made eye contact, gave a head nod and a little wave before turning to Sam and telling her who had had just come in. He froze when he caught sight of the expression on her face, eyes wide and hand clapped over her mouth as if she had just caught herself from screaming.

That, more than anything else, unsettled the black haired teenager. After many years of friendship with Sam Manson, he knew that the three things she prided herself on most were her independence, from anyone who thought her condition warranted extra condescending assistance as well as parents who insisted that she wear brighter colors (as if she could see them), her activism, and the fact that she did not, ever, scream.

He walked into the classroom slightly dazed.

"Mr. Lancer?" he asked hesitantly as he saw for the first time how the man had grabbed onto the fire extinguisher on his desk with a death hold.

"Ah," the teacher said, releasing his grip and smoothing out his tie. "Mr. Fenton. It's… good to see you back. All well?"

"Yeah…" Danny replied, shrugging one shoulder and turning to give a better view of the arm still slung in a blue and white cast. "Just a couple bumps and bruises. Not a big deal. They said they couldn't find anything else wrong with me so they let me out and, uh, here I am."

Lancer stared at him for a moment, trying to process the rapid change of emotions he had just gone through as he realized that the boy was not a threat and that he had come out of his accident relatively unscathed and that he had come back to Casper High at possibly the worst possible moment. Not that he would wish anyone extra time in a sterile disinfected white room, but he would rather have had his student still in the hospital than come to school not knowing what had been happening in his absence and, though lack of knowledge, end up needing to go back to the hospital for something worse than whatever had happened to him before.

"Uhh…" Danny waved his good hand in front of him. "Mr. Lancer, is everything okay? I mean," he broke off to stare around the classroom. "Everyone seems… kinda… jumpy or something…"

The English teacher cleared his throat. "Please take a seat, Mr. Fenton and Mr. Foley can catch you up on the state of affairs."

Danny raised an eyebrow at the implication that the vice principal of the school would not only let him talk to his friends during class, but actually order them to do it. Everyone in the entire room stared at him as he shrugged and crossed the classroom to take his seat next to Sam and Tucker.

"Hey, guys," he whispered as he sat down.

"Hey, man, good to see you," Tucker said. "Your parents weren't giving out too many details there. We weren't sure when you were coming back."

"Yeah, well," Danny hedged, "things were weird and we didn't know how long they'd take. But I'm here now. And everything's… fine."

"Weird, how?" Sam asked, her wide eyes fixed on Danny.

"Well, nice to see you too," Danny scoffed. "Just… weird. I dunno. Never mind, so tell me what's going on here. Where is everyone? And why is everything so…" he waved his hand around at the rest of his class, "crazy?"

"Dude, you don't believe what's been going on here."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that if you had your phone on you, I would not have stopped texting you about this."

"I was in the hospital, Tuck!" Danny protested. "How could I have had my phone on me?"

"I know, I know, but… you sitting down for this?"

"Yes, Tucker, I am sitting. At my desk," Danny deadpanned.

"Okay, okay, but look, you're going to think I'm crazy…"

"Tucker, my parents believe in ghosts. Whatever you're going to say, trust me, I've heard weirder."

"Yeah, right, umm," Tucker let out a nervous chuckle.

"What is going on here?" Danny pressed when his friend started fiddling with the flap on his cargo pants instead of answering.

"Ghosts," he spit out quickly. "In the school."

Danny stared at him. "Ghosts?" he repeated slowly.

"In the school," Tucker confirmed.

Danny's face paled until he was almost white and looked like he was about to sway out of his seat. Sam grabbed his arm.

"Ghosts?" he asked weakly, looking to her for confirmation. Sam nodded, wide eyed.

"Ghosts…" he repeated again in a hoarse voice.


	3. Escalation

The Casper High ruling body had to finally acknowledge that something was amiss when the record levels of unattendance continued to rise into the following week, as well as considering the inexplicably bizarre behavior of their normally most sensible teacher.

An investigation had been launched, eventually, amidst the grumbling of other staff members that it was a ridiculous waste of city and school funds so see if there truly was any paranormal activity in the hallways.

Most of the teachers believed that it was a series of pranks that had gotten wildly out of hand, and had snowballed with students joining in the chorus of "ghosts! ghosts!" as soon as they realized that they were being taken somewhat seriously, if only to cater to the vice principal's whims.

At first, it had started as Lancer's class only, infected as they must have been by the delusions he spouted from the front of the classroom. That was understandable. The impressionable children following in the deranged speeches of an authority figure that found the need to empty a fire extinguisher more days than he left the red metal canister alone.

But once it had been started, the original population of students claiming to have seen something or been attacked by the said mysterious something had been joined by hordes of others. As news traveled through the school of why the freshmen were acting so strangely, students of every grade started joining their ranks, claiming that their classes, homework, group projects, and tests must all be postponed until the school had been purged of any threats to their safety.

The school secretary, after putting up with a sharp increase in the forged letters of absence for a few days before fielding the inevitable calls from concerned parents until she simply couldn't put all of them on hold at the same time without the system crashing, had decided to leave in the middle of the afternoon, starting the backlog of vacation time she had been stockpiling for years with almost no notice.

Her sudden absence threw the entire system into absolute chaos. They had thought that it was bad before, but suddenly schedules and meetings and decisions and discussions ground to a halt or were rushed over or forgotten. Teachers tried to keep the unruly or terrified student population still in the classrooms under control and rarely had time to get through the new material on their daily calendar.

Strangely enough, Lancer's class seemed to be the most calm one left in the school, despite being the ones to have started the entire mess.

Ishayama stumbled through the hallways trying to instill some sense of order with her very presence as she suddenly appeared in doorways, looming over insubordinate students who should have been doing practice problems from the textbook in complete silence.

The effect she was going for was a bit diminished now, because, while she was normally an impressive figure despite her lack of height, the disheveled hair, and the voice that fought to make itself heard above the din of a classroom in upheaval, plus the fact that she had been making the rounds nearly nonstop for the past three days and was now a staple of nearly every period for every grade, made it a much less impactful visit than she hoped.

But Lancer's students were seated quietly at their desks, paying attention to a class that was actually being taught and, while the fire extinguisher was perched stolidly in the middle of the teacher's desk, and various students clutched strange items from the depths of the gym closet, they were remarkably well behaved. Unlike the behavior that seemed to have spread to the class clowns of every single class, no one here was screaming or jumping over desks. None of the students were huddled together determining the finer phrases of petitions to spread around guaranteeing them an extended period of no school.

As Lancer stopped lecturing and turned to face her, wondering what was wrong—as if he didn't know the madness that had spread throughout the school—she made up her mind.

"You," she pointed to her vice principal. "My office. As soon as classes are over."

He raised his eyebrows.

"You be there," she added, as if what she had meant wasn't clear enough.

"I will," he replied, and he had the nerve to blink at her, like she was the crazy one around here.

"Good," she breathed as she listed heavily against the doorframe. Then, before anyone could say anything else, she turned back into the hallway to make her way to the next class.

Lancer stared after her for a moment, then turned to the class long enough to say, "Behave yourselves for a minute," before following the short woman out the door.

"Ishayama!" he called gently once the classroom door was closed behind him and they were both out in the empty hallway.

Sighing, she turned around. "What?" she asked wearily.

The man was slightly taken aback.

"I just… wanted to know if you are alright. You seem… frazzled."

She stared at him. "Frazzled? Frazzled? You think I'm…?" Her voice rose into a near screech by the time she was gaping wordlessly. "You're darn right, I'm frazzled."

"Oh," was all he could think of to say, despite the degree in English.

"Oh?" she parroted. "Oh yes. And do you want to know _why_ I'm frazzled?" she asked in a tone that meant there could only be one answer.

Before he had a chance to give it, however, she continued. "Because the entire school has gone crazy! Half of the students are home 'sick' and it's all that I and the rest of the teachers here can do to keep the rest of them in line. Productivity has plummeted. I don't even know the last time a test was given!

"The troublemakers think they've been given free reign and their chaotic behavior has spread to students who, even though they would normally be acting perfectly well, realize that they can get away with anything they want! And what can we do? Call special parent teacher conferences with every single parent out of the blue? While my teachers are running around like chickens with their heads cut off? I don't think so!"

She turned, then, from ranting at the rows of lockers lining the sides of the hallway to looking straight up at Lancer.

"And do you know," she asked with a low voice, "whose fault this all is?"

He shook his head dumbly.

"Yours!" she shrieked, unbelievingly. "Yours! It is your fault. This entire thing is your fault. You are the one who started this. Who started talking about ghosts and going crazy and shooting the fire extinguisher into thin air every day. It's your students who started believing they were being attacked in class and telling their friends about it in the cafeteria. It's spreading like the plague, now, and it all started with you!"

Lancer stared at her for a moment. "I-in my defence," he began slowly, hoping not to set the principal off again, "my class has never been unruly or misbehaved during the past week. They are not behaving out of line and my students are not part of the problem. They have adjusted remarkably well to the notion that they may be attacked by a ghost at any point in time."

Ishayama stepped forward until she was poking at finger at her second in command's chest.

"You think this is all a game, don't you?" she finally seethed. "You still try to tell me that ghosts are real and that they are attacking the school? And then expect me to believe that the entire school population freaking out isn't happening because of you?!"

The English teacher opened his mouth to reply but a glare from Ishamaya stopped him.

"Not another word. I don't want to hear it. I don't want to hear anything from you except an explanation of how on earth your class—the one that believes in ghosts—seems to be the only sane one left in the school. So you will report to my office as soon as your class is over and you will explain to me and the board and your fellow teachers how to control these kids."

They both flinched as sounds of a desk being upturned onto the floor, accompanied by a mix of laughter and screaming, clearly came from one of the neighboring classrooms.

"Do… I make myself clear?"


	4. Distraction

Lancer finished the rest of his school day with his mind tugged into more directions than was usual for him even in such strange times.

As it had been for the past week, the impending threat of suddenly lowering temperatures and the accompanying visit from a still unknown—but nonetheless terrifying—and dangerous being was his always his top priority. No matter what task he had at hand, much of his energy was still spent in concentrating on his surroundings in case anything went amiss. Trying to ensure that he would catch that slight drop in temperature that was their first warning as soon as it manifested itself. Always in the back of his mind was the knowledge that he held the lives of all of his students in his hands and that that moment's warning could literally mean life or death for them. So he dare not miss it.

He was ready—trying not to be actually _waiting_ at this point because he refused to let this become a routine—to drop everything and start marshalling his students, who were honestly as adept at reading the telltale signs now as he was, into beginning the escape route that they had already long established.

They all lived with their phones in their pockets now. Not that they were allowed to use them for the normal frivolous frowned-upon-in-school texting to friends or passing along the answers to the closed book quiz they were taking, because there were still some rules that had to be enforced even in times of crisis. But heaven forbid one of these trips to the back of the classroom were someone's last and Lancer had deprived them of the ability to send a last goodbye.

The fact that no one had been targeted by this thing yet was most definitely a reason to rejoice, but Lancer was under no illusions that he could breathe easy. This was not a guarantee of the way things were going to continue. Just because the thing hadn't tried to kill anyone thus far did not mean that any of them were safe or that they could let their guards down in the slightest, even if these interruptions had begun to seem routine to them and they had become used to dropping their lesson plan at a moment's notice.

He hadn't forgotten the way the upturned desk had slammed into the wall on that first day, leaving cracks in the cinderblocks and metal legs twisted beyond the ability for even school maintenance to salvage the desk chair.

And, he suspected, since the glaring crack in the wall wasn't completely concealed by the patch of a slightly different shade of off white that had been slathered over it, his students hadn't forgotten either.

That was why they were well behaved, he decided. They _knew_. They knew full well that this wasn't a prank and that this wasn't an excuse to try to weasel their way out of the rest of their assignments for the year.

They were at school while there just happened to be monsters on the loose.

But they trusted him enough to continue attending classes. They believed that he would protect them if something came at them again.

What he could really do with a canister of carbon dioxide if the ghost-thing decided that it really wanted to single one of his students out, was beyond him. But he couldn't afford to dwell on his potentially life threatening inadequacies. Not while he was still the best protection these children had since they were still in Casper High and no one else seemed to be taking the threat seriously.

He did have the opportunity to change that this afternoon when he went to Ishayama's office. Every school official and teacher and board member that the principal could scrounge up would likely be there and this was his chance to present his case before them all.

To explain in rational terms what had been going on and why they needed to do something about it. Why it would be better to close down for a little while since the school had been the only known location of sightings thus far. Or why, if the board decided to be pigheaded in their refusal to send the students to safety, they needed to be more prepared to face the situations that would surely arise here.

It had been sheer luck that his classroom, the only one prepared, had still been the only one to see the ghost so far. To them, it must have seemed like bad luck that it targeted no one else, but Lancer thanked it for the safety it meant for the rest of the school.

But that grace period was bound to run out. They needed to stop tempting fate by not having anyone else ready for this when the issue came up, and it was going to come up sooner or later.

Lancer was the Vice Principal. It was his duty to see the school prepared for emergencies and, _Great Expectations_ , if this didn't count as an emergency, then he didn't know what would.

He would stand up and explain everything to the school board, tell them in terms so black and white that they would have no choice but to heed his advice and finally do something about the thing coming through the walls to plague his classroom.

Fists clenched in determination as he vowed that he would protect his students… all of his students.

Once he had promised this to himself, however, he blinked up again to reality and realized that he had been planning his day so far in advance that while he had fully imagined how his afternoon would go, he had neglected the class he was supposed to be teaching.

Looking back to the chalkboard, he stared blankly for a moment as he tried to reclaim the disconnected thoughts that must have come from his head. Trying to understand the notes that he had so recently written but suddenly seemed so foreign to his train of thought that it made no sense.

Sighing, he turned back to look at his class, who sat, for the most part, patiently waiting for him to collect his thoughts and continue. A few people had begun doodling quietly in what he supposed must have been more than just a few seconds of free time.

But nowhere was the utter chaos that he had been hearing as he walked down the halls. No crashes, no shouting matches. His students were better behaved now than they had ever been up to this point in the school year.

He smiled at them fondly, appreciating that fact and deciding that they well deserved the break that the other classes had been taking for themselves.

"Well, class," he said, abandoning whatever subject he had been teaching throughout this last period. "You may have heard your principal saying that there is going to be a faculty meeting after class today."

He paused for the quiet laughter that spread throughout the classroom. At least they were still capable of that despite everything that had been happening to them lately. And apparently, yes, they had heard Ishayama loud and clear when she scheduled his attendance in her office as if he were a delinquent student.

"Yes, well," he smiled along with them at the image that brought up before most definitely changing the subject before his image could be tarnished with any further parallels drawn to that idea. He was, after all, the most responsible adult in Casper High at the moment. It wouldn't do to have his reputation eroded by something he had said himself. "This is a chance to try to gain control of the situation that we've been dealing with this week."

That sobered them quickly.

"I'm sure you've seen how the rest of the school is handling the news?" he asked, looking around at the class full of nodding heads.

It would have been impossible to miss the way everyone had suddenly started not paying attention to any sort of authoritarian figure. Even though they weren't taking any subjects with the upperclassmen, it was clear to see just from a little bit of time out in the hallways or in the cafeteria to know that something was far from normal in the rest of the school.

"Most of the students," Lancer began to pace the front of the classroom as he spoke, "have taken advantage of the situation by trying to get out of as much schoolwork as they can. I'm sure you understand where they're coming from," Lancer allowed. "As homework tends to be the thing you like least in your young and exciting lives."

Then he turned and watched them all for a moment, a realization suddenly dawning upon him of something he had been taking for granted all this time.

"I am not sure that I had thanked you all for not acting like that," Lancer said, and most of the students looked up at him in surprise. "You have all behaved remarkably over the past few days," he said honestly, "and I am exceedingly grateful to you for keeping your cool and doing what I ask. For not freaking out or trying to use this as an excuse to get out of everything you possibly can."

He scanned the room, trying to make his appreciation known. "Many of your fellow students are home. I do not grudge them that. But I have as of yet been unable to explain to the rest of the school staff that the threat to the student body is real. _You_ know it is real because you have seen it for yourselves."

Many of the teenagers began to squirm in their seats as they remembered all too well the green shape that had flown at them until a hissing stream of white obscured their vision.

"But Principal Ishayama has not seen it," Lancer pointed out to them. "Neither have any of the other teachers. Neither have the other classes, for that matter," he said, saddened not that this was the case for he wouldn't wish such an experience on anyone, but because in this case, it seemed the only way the other teachers would be convinced of what he told them.

"Which means that the burden of proof lies with us. And we need to indeed prove that the situation is real and that it is serious. This is going to be our best chance to do that, ladies and gentlemen. In this meeting, I can either convince the staff that we are right and that better steps need to be taken as a precaution to ensure the safety of everyone still here… or they will be convinced that there is something wrong with all of our heads. That we are hallucinating. Or have cracked after too much hard work. Or that we have become over familiar with the Fentons."

A quick glance to young Daniel. "No offence, Mr. Fenton," he added quickly. "But the general consensus of your family's business is…" he trailed off because it wasn't polite to insult his student's parents in front of them. Even if everyone in the room could still very easily fill in the blank on what he had already said.

"None taken," Danny replied with a wave of the hand that wasn't in a sling, and it seemed like he was telling the truth. It seemed that he had developed a thick skin over the years of being his parents' son. Or perhaps, the ability to let things roll off of him. Like water on a duck.

"That being said," Lancer continued, turning to the class at large, "those of us here in this room right now are the most knowledgeable in the entire school as to what I must present to the board. I therefore suggest to take advantage of that happy situation by abandoning the lectures I had prepared for the rest of the day—" here the students looked to their friends around them in astonishment at the proclamation—"and, barring any untoward interruptions," Lancer explained, "spend the rest of our class periods together detailing the most effective lines of reasoning and argumentation that I might present today."

Some of the students looked at him as if they weren't quite sure what he was suggesting.

"I would like you to help me prepare my presentation. Help me write it," he explained, "in order to help Casper High and try to end this. So… what do you say?"

As the class cleared their desks in record time and leaned forward already with hands in the air and suggestions on the tips of their tongue, Lancer thought that this was the most excited any class of his had ever been for a project.


	5. Preparation

Lancer's class performed admirably.

The students had been eager to leave behind their usual lesson behind in favor of something new. He had expected that. But these teenagers had looked at this as more than just an extra project.

Hands sprung up into the air and Lancer had had a hard time getting each suggestion down on the board before the next person was speaking. Soon, the chalkboard had been completely filled with proofs of their ghostly visitor, arguments for legitimately closing down the school in order to investigate the threat, and suggestions for how to go about making their school a safer place in the meantime.

The ideas flying across the room in that hour and a half had been worthy of seniors, at least. Perhaps finishing a project in a course on state and local government by presenting a change of procedure.

He was able to introduce logical syllogisms and persuasive patterns to these students at least a year before it would have appeared on any teacher's syllabus. And they understood the intricate ideas first patterned by the ancient Greeks because with them his students were putting together an argument with real life applications. About something that mattered to them and with which they had firsthand experience.

They knew something that no one else in the school did. Their mission, and they chose to accept it wholeheartedly, was to make others believe and understand what they themselves had seen.

The rhetorical skills blossomed and flourished in the classroom as people began to understand how to set forth a convincing argument. Students who had never raised their hand in class before were now volunteering their opinions, rephrasing their thoughts to make them more clearly understood, and their classmates encouraged them from the side, nodding their heads and agreeing with everything that was said.

Lancer could have recommended every student in the room to join the forensics team after he heard, for the first time, what they were really capable of. And he could have expected every one of them to do well in the national circuit. But this afternoon was not about recruiting new students for the NFL, it was about preparing a case to the best of their ability.

So now he stood at the front of the room, copying down the notes from the board in a shorthand that only he could decipher. He agreed with the final line of argumentation and order the class had finally decided upon—guided, of course, by his commentary sprinkled throughout the process, but one that was, in fact, nearly entirely their own.

While he was occupied in this final step of preparation before he had to go before the board, he let his students take a well deserved break at the end of class, allowing them free time to complete the little homework that they had been assigned or letting them speak in small groups so long as they did not disrupt anyone actually trying to be productive.

Nearly half of them were finishing off worksheets so that they could spend the rest of their day doing whatever it was they would like. Eating ice cream in the warm sun outside of the Nasty Burger, for example, and forgetting about the oddness taking place in their school. He couldn't blame them. It was exactly the sort of thing he should like to do were he in a position where the safety of others did not rest on the fact that he remember and always maintain constant vigilance.

In the back of the room, several students had actually taken their notes and decided to continue hashing out the finer details of the prose. One girl was sitting with an extremely serious expression on her face pretending to be an unconvinced Principal Ishayama as the students around her took turns plying her with bigger and better arguments.

Lancer smiled. Perhaps he would make a note of those five and send them along to whoever was running their speech and debate team these days.

Casting an eye over the rest of the room, he was satisfied that everyone else was behaving as they ought, talking quietly in small groups with their friends, so he let himself focus on the outline his class had helped him prepare.

One strain of conversation near the front of the room did catch his attention, though, as Ms. Manson and Mr. Foley were asking their newly returned friend about his medical situation. He, too, was curious as to the state of his student, but he knew from experience that teenagers were more open about such things with their friends than they were with their teachers. He had refrained from asking if all he was going to get out of it was a tightlipped answer that Mr. Fenton was 'fine' despite his pale face and the arm in a sling.

But now he listened closely to the exchange in case there was anything that he should know.

"Are you sure you're alright?" Ms. Manson asked, turning to her friend.

Danny shifted at his desk. "Yeah," he replied.

Sam pinned him with a stare that Tucker must have coached her to make at some point in their long friendship. It was an excellent likeness to the expressions her fellow teenagers made on a nearly daily basis, and this one was particularly effective coming at just the right angle to make it look like she was actually looking him straight in the eyes.

"Yeah, man," Tucker followed up by prodding him in the arm. "You don't look too good. We're serious. Did you escape from the hospital? Does Sam need to take you back?"

Danny chuckled nervously. "Sam take me back? What, you're going to let her drive? Then we'll all really need a hospital."

"Hey," Tucker held up his hands. "I'm not going to be the one to take you to one of those white boxes of needles and antiseptic. I'm sure that you can give Sam good enough directions before you pass out in the back seat."

Sam nodded, a grin on her face. "You'll just need to tell me which one's the gas and which one's the brake, but yeah, I can totally take you. And if you don't answer Tucker's question," she added. "We're just going to assume that for once in your life, you were actually rebellious and broke out of the hospital against the doctor's orders, so we're going to have to take you back. It is our duty as responsible citizens."

Tucker chortled. "You… a responsible citizen, Sam? Please…"

"Hey, if it'll get me out onto the road, I'll take it," she said.

"Fair enough," he nodded.

She and Mr. Foley sounded so serious about their plan that for a moment, Lancer was worried about them actually carrying it out and wondered if he should step into the conversation with at least a raised eyebrow to show that their disaster of a plan was frowned upon by the authorities even before they put it into action. Thankfully, he was saved from making that decision when Mr. Fenton decided to answer them and thus make their threat invalid.

"I'm… I'm okay, really," he said.

"Come on, man," Tucker sighed. "You gotta level with us."

"No, I am. I'm okay," Danny pressed. "The doctors let me go. No massive hospital breakouts," he assured them. "Said I was pretty much okay. The sling is mostly for show," he said, lifting it up with more ease than Lancer would have expected. "My parents will… hopefully… let me stop wearing it in a few days. They're just super paranoid because they thought it was a lot worse than it actually is."

"Well, you were in the hospital for a couple days, man," Tucker pointed out. "We all thought you were going to come out of it with at least a missing arm or something."

"Or an extra one," Sam supplied.

"Right. Or an extra one."

Danny flapped his arms in a brief imitation of a chicken, minus the usually accompanying noises, thankfully.

"Nope," he decided. "Just the two. Sorry to disappoint."

"But then why were you there so long?"

Danny hedged by slowly closing the notebook he had on his desk page by page. "They just wanted to run a bunch of tests. Make sure that they didn't miss anything and that it was just my arm, I guess."

"What else could it have been?" Sam asked. "That's a lot of tests for just an arm."

"So many tests," Tucker said, visibly shivering in his seat.

Danny shrugged half heartedly. "My parents wanted to make sure that I didn't have ecto acne or anything…"

"That you didn't have _what_ now?"

"Ecto acne. It's a lot worse than it sounds, apparently. My parents were pretty worried there for a while. The docs would have let me out a lot sooner but Mom and Dad were like 'no we're not leaving until you tell us that he's clean.'"

"Whoa."

"Yeah. One of their friends got it in college and, uh, it sounds like he was in the hospital for a couple years after that."

"A couple years?!" Sam and Tucker chorused.

Danny flinched at the outburst. "Geez, keep it down, would you?" He looked around the room to see lots of people looking toward them. "You're going to get us in trouble!" he said, quickly checking to make sure that Lancer wasn't ready to yell at them.

Lancer, of course, averted his eyes at the last moment and was serenely copying down one of the last lines when his student looked up at him.

"But a couple years? In a hospital?" Tucker asked, his voice going up an octave or two even though he was more quiet than he had been before.

"That's really serious, Danny," Sam said, and Lancer agreed.

"Yeah, well… I… don't have it, okay? So it's all fine," he said, trying to placate his horrified friends, but the image of him relegated to living in such a horrible place for _years_ was a hard one to quell, as they both stared at him for a while. "At first I thought… but it's all good, okay?" he said again, "I don't have ecto acne and I don't need to go to a hospital. I'm… fine."

"Well, I'm really glad about that, man," Tucker finally said, his voice a little rough.

Sam put a hand tentatively on Danny's and quietly said, "Me too."

"But why would they think that's what you had?" Tucker asked. "I mean… that seems really weird, random, right?"

"Um, not so much," Danny admitted. "Their friend who got it? They were working in the lab on a project together and something went wrong and blew up in his face."

"Well, what were _you_ doing, then?" Sam demanded.

One of Danny's hands rubbed at the back of his neck.

"Dude?" Tucker asked, on the edge of freaking out. "What happened? Did… did you… did something…?"

"I, um, accidentally set off one of my parents' inventions. It was a big one and they told me to be careful in the lab and not to touch anything," Danny added with a side glance up to Lancer, "but I didn't think it was working, so I just… well… found out it was working," he finally said with a weak laugh.

Both of his friends stared at him.

"But I'm okay," he stressed. "Really. So, let's change the subject…"

Sam blinked a couple times and then asked, "So what color's your shirt?"

That startled a laugh out of Danny. "White with a red oval. Why?"

"No reason," she said. "Just… curious."

"Well, hey," Tucker said, sitting up in his seat. "What about me? I'm feeling left out over here!"

Sam laughed, "Alright, what color is your shirt?"

"Mustard yellow," he proclaimed proudly, and she was still staring at him with her unfocused eyes when the bell rang to end the last period of the day.

Every student in the class either picked up their bags to start the mass exodus flooding through the hallway or frantically packed up their notebooks to join their classmates. Several of the students took the time to wish Lancer good luck in his presentation, which touched him.

Once the classroom had mostly emptied and Mr. Fenton and Foley had accompanied Ms. Manson off to their next destination, Lancer stood and faced his classroom, gathering strength of mind for his students—from his students—to do what he was about to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *NFL = National Forensics League, aka speech and debate, not football


	6. Evidence

Navigating his way through the waves of students exiting the building as quickly as they could, Lancer took his time moving from one hallway to the next. He carefully protected the pages of notes in his arms as he was jostled by the raucous teenagers surrounding him.

He knew, of course, that he would need to arrive at Principal Ishayama's office in a timely manner unless he wanted to be reprimanded in the tone with which she had been railing against nearly every student in the school for the past several days. And he had no desire to face her wrath any more than he was already in for. He knew, too, that every minute he lingered in the halls was another minute he lost in his battle to convince the other staff members that their problem was real.

So he made an effort to fight against the current of students wanting to leave, edging his way further and further into the building until the crowds thinned out and he could easily finish his trek through the school.

Short, balding Mr. Falluca came panting down the other hall to meet him near the door.

The science teacher was muttering, "Craziness, craziness," under his breath until they met. Lancer turned the handle and pulled the Principal's door open, waving a hand to usher his colleague inside.

"Thank you," the man managed before hurrying into the office suite.

They both went past the now empty secretary's desk and moved into Ishayama's actual office, which had been rearranged to accommodate as many of the teachers as she could convince to come to this meeting. The seldom used conference table had a smattering of metal folding chairs interspersed between the few plus swivel ones that normally stayed in the room. Most of them had been filled at this point.

Apparently, Lancer was the last to arrive and was therefore left the most squeaky and uneven of uncomfortable chairs in the bunch.

Ishayama presided over the gathering from her desk at the end of the room. She stood in front of it with folded arms as she watched the last two teachers take their places. Then she cleared her throat to get everyone's attention even though it wasn't quite necessary. Most of the teachers were staring at her already, wanting an explanation for the craziness that had exploded across the school in the past week now that she had promised to provide one for them, and a solution to their problem of unruly students. The ones that weren't already giving her their undivided attention looked too exhausted to make small talk among themselves and seemed in danger of falling asleep before the discussion had even started.

As Lancer tottered awkwardly in his chair, Ishayama stepped forward to address her fellow workers.

"Ladies and gentlemen," she said, "I assume you all know why we are gathered here in my office today?"

One light brown haired woman slid down in her seat until she caught herself and jerked awake. Everyone else muttered under their breath because yes, it was kind of hard to have missed the school's transformation from a normal bastion of education to the madhouse it had been of late.

And no one was under the impression that it was anyone's fault but Lancer's.

Every single head in the room swiveled his way before the principal claimed their attention again for long enough to officially pass the baton.

"So," she continued with a sickly sweet smile, as if she _liked_ having her school turned upsidedown, "now we'll all hear from Lancer's own perspective just what he's done with our school and how to reverse the damage."

She stared pointedly at him until he rose from his seat, papers still clutched to his chest. Ishayama leaned back against her desk and watching him prepare his presentation, laying out his folder on a free edge of the conference table and flipping through it until he'd found the sheets with his shorthand notes.

Under the hostile stare of every teacher in the school, it took longer than was comfortable for him to then find a vantage point from which he could address his colleagues without turning his back on his boss. It struck him for the first time that Ishayama was not the only one who blamed him for what had been going on in the school. As he looked around the circle of faces, he saw clearly the derision with which each teacher held him. The extent to which they thought he had completely cracked and left the realm of sanity and classroom leadership behind.

Well, then. He straightened up and held up the outline that his students had made for him. He knew that he was in the right. He knew that things had been coming through the school walls and it was only a matter of time before they switched from crashing desks together into targeting students. His classroom knew the danger that they were in and they behaved admirably.

They were not the problem. Their attitude was the solution to ensuring the safety of every student in the school.

The only thing he needed to do was convince the stolid, worn out skeptics in front of him that the threat was real. From there, everything would simply fall into place.

But this was going to be a challenge, he saw, as every person in the room, while claiming to want to know what was going on and why the school had flipped upside down, refused to believe the explanation he'd submitted for the past week. Without considering that the fact that he might not be completely crazy, they would never understand the mania that had gripped the student body. Or how to manage it.

Lancer narrowed his eyes, meeting the skeptic glares of his audience.

"I know you all think that I have gone out past left field here," he said, and they all agreed with him under his breath. He clenched his jaw together for a moment to collect himself before firmly stating, "Well, I haven't. I'm not crazy. Not hallucinating. And not making things up because I've finally had my fill of teaching and want the school to close down."

He maintained strong eye contact with everyone around the table and tried to put as much conviction behind his words as possible. This was important. The teachers needed to believe him.

"I know that the things I have said sound bizarre. Impossible, even. Certainly highly irrational. I grant you all of the above. Nothing like this has ever happened before to me or to anyone in any of my classes. But it _is_ happening now," he stressed. "Something is going on and it is happening here. In our hallways, in our classrooms," he pointed out beyond the door they'd all come through. "To our school."

"Yeah," Falluca piped up from his perch at the end of the table. "I'll tell you what's going on around here," he said in a voice scratchy and squeaky with overuse. "The kids are running wild and doing whatever they want! They don't listen to me," he said, wiping a handkerchief across his forehead and glancing across the room to look for support. "They don't listen to anyone!"

"It's a madhouse out there!" Tetslaff boomed from her end of the table. "They won't even listen to me. We've got the Presidential Fitness test coming up in just a few weeks and at the rate we're going, the only thing these kids might pass is a new national record for roughhousing. I can't even use dodge ball as a fall back because they all just pelt me!" she added, and suddenly the black eye she sported made more sense.

"Alright," Lancer began again, "I understand that things have gotten a little out of control around the school."

More than one person around the room coughed suspiciously and Falluca opened his mouth to interrupt the meeting again. Frustrated, Lancer kept talking to avoid losing the podium, so to speak. He hadn't come prepared to this conference only to be talked over. Everyone already knew what the problems were so it didn't do anyone good to hash them over from everyone's personal position.

"You're all more than familiar with what's been happening so I'll spare you going back over those details."

"Yeah, we know what's going on in the school," the brown haired teacher said, no longer looking like she was about to fall asleep. "But do you? Do you know what you've done? Do you realize how much you've thrown the rest of the school off? How every single class is going down the drain?"

Ishamaya stood up from her perch on the desk, hands out. "Please, settle down, we're all adults here…"

" _Twelve Angry Men_ , people," Lancer said over the principal, his patience wearing thin with the teachers that should know better than to act like the children they were complaining about. "I know full well what has been happening throughout the school. You do too. But I know what to do about it. So if you'll all just settle down, we can talk about this like rational people and be able to get something figured out."

He was breathing hard as he looked at his colleagues again, staring them down to erase any desire to interrupt him again.

"Almost everyone in the school is going crazy and you need to know what to do about it. My students have been just fine. Exemplary, even, and if you want to know why—like you keep saying you do—then you should sit down, be quiet, and listen to what they have to say."

Tetslaff leaned forward on the table, making it creak beneath the weight of her massive muscled arms. "William," she said, "I've always looked up to you as a teacher but so help me if you say that there was a zombie walking through the hallways, I will walk out of this room and put a beefsteak on my eye for the rest of the night instead of sitting here listening to nonsense."

Murmurs of agreement travelled around the table.

Lancer refrained from smacking his forehead. "It's not _zombies_ ," he sighed.

"And no ghosts, either, Lancer. This is ridiculous."

He sighed, then leaned forward with his hands on the table. "Look," he said forcefully, catching everyone's eye in turn. "You all want to know what's been going on and I have the answer. That's why we're all here. So that I can tell you and you can listen. Whether or not you take my advice is up to you but at least I'll have tried to help. Now you may not like what I have to say and you may not even believe it but it's the only thing that you're going to hear from me because it's the _truth_."

Slapping his folder full of notes onto the table, he forcefully flipped it open. "So all I ask is that you hear me out start to finish without interruptions and then you can debate anything you want afterward."

The teachers were leaning back in their seats, seemingly chastised for the moment. Taking heart, Lancer got ready to begin. "Good," he breathed, nodding. "Good."

A chill began to seep through the room and it pulled him back to the entire purpose of this meeting. He had to tell them all what was really happening in the school. He needed to prepare them so that they could properly defend the students who had been placed under their care.

"It's ghosts," he said, and the entire room erupted in chaos.

"Now just listen to me!" he shouted as his colleagues reacted by throwing up their hands or shouting at him or pushing up from the table to leave the meeting.

"I'm being serious!" he said, even though no one was paying attention to him any longer. "And it's a dangerous situation," he acknowledged as he scrambled after pages that were nearly scattered to the floor when one of the math professors brushed by him. "But if we establish protocol, we should be able to come up with a system to…"

The principal stepped in front of the door to block anyone from leaving. "Quiet!" she shouted, and everyone in the room listened to her. "Everyone sit down," she ordered. Soon most of the seats were filled.

Lancer began to thank her for restoring order when she pierced him with a glare. "You too," she seethed.

He sat down obediently, chair tilting back and forth to rattle against the floor. One of the feet must have been missing its plastic cover.

Ishayama smoothed her hair back and glared at every face in the room. "Well," she began icily. "I can understand why you are incapable of controlling your classes if this is how you behave in what should be a very professional meeting of the school staff," she admonished. A few heads drooped while others stared defiantly back at her second in command as if his speech was explanation enough for their behavior.

Lancer slid back against the cold metal of his chair and tried not to get angry back at them. It wouldn't help his case. He needed to set an example. That was what his class was supposed to be to them. They knew how to handle the ghosts and what to do whenever the temperature…

Dropped.

The temperature had dropped and he'd been so caught up in the meeting that he hadn't been paying attention to the signs. Yes, he could nearly see his breath now. How much time had gone by? How much time was left?

 _Paradise_ _Lost_ of all the times…!

"Ishayama…" he said, but she whirled around to face him.

"And you!" she said, face contorted as she was barely controlling her anger. "You were supposed to actually take this seriously. You were supposed to explain how to control the students, not spread rumors and insanity to the rest of the staff!"

"Yes, but…" he stood from his seat, eyes searching the room for something he could use as a weapon. Didn't have fire extinguishers in here…

"Coming," he said, looking beyond her as if she wasn't there. "It's coming."

"Have you honestly lost your mind?" she demanded, somehow towering over him with her hands on her hips.

He turned around and picked up his chair, testing it. The rest of the room stared at the scene playing out before them. They'd heard reports of how the Vice Principal had lost it, of course, but this was the first time actually seeing it for themselves.

Lancer wasn't paying any attention to them, though, but was scanning the walls as if he could see through them to tell which direction the thing might come from.

There was an eerie silence for a few moments during which everyone seemed to realize that it was cold. A couple teachers seemed to think this was odd, given that their staff meetings were normally conducted in a cozy setting, and pulled their blazers closer around them.

No one was ready for the glowing green shape to materialize out of the wall behind Ishayama's desk.

Everyone blinked at it as the thing eased through the cinderblocks, floating octopus like tentacles smoking into existence before their very eyes. When reality finally caught up with the teachers and they realized that they were in fact seeing something very large and menacing and not at all natural looking or computer generated, they panicked.

Falluca and the brunette teacher screamed, catching the figure's attention. The ghost jerked its red eyes toward them and everyone tried to dive safely out of its reach beneath the table or under the desk.

Lancer gripped the rickety metal folding chair tightly in his hands and stood his ground at the front of the table between the ghost and his co-workers.

The ghost floated closer, and he could see the long, sharp fangs shining in its open mouth. He rocked back and forth on his feet, waiting for it to come in range before he attacked and alerted it to his pitiful lack of an arsenal. Long seconds stretched by and Lancer longed to be anywhere else in the world but in a haunted school. But he realized that he was the only one standing up, the only one able to keep a cool enough head to know what to do.

He was barely breathing as the shadowy green figure came closer…. closer… there.

Closing his eyes for a brief moment, he hoped that this would work and that they wouldn't all die here and he swung with all the strength he could muster.

There was a shriek and a thud as the chair made contact with something solid. He tried to pull it back for a second swing in case it was needed but found that he couldn't budge the metal in his hands even an inch.

When Lancer once again opened his eyes to assess the situation, he saw no ghost in sight. It had gone, but the chair he'd hit it with was now embedded halfway through the wall of the principal's office.

He gazed at it, mouth open in surprise. It looked like one of those modern minimalistic found-object art sculptures.

But the room had already noticeably warmed, so he took the time to blink at the new addition to the decor and catch his breath. In a minute his heart would stop pounding so loudly and he would actually be able to hear again. The scuffles on the carpet as his colleagues decided that it was safe to come out of hiding. The panting as they recovered from having their first paranormal encounter of their lives.

Lancer turned to see the faces now peering at him in shock and new understanding. Ishayama looked particularly abashed as she came out from behind her desk and smoothed her suit skirt. Tucked a strand of loose hair behind her ear. Walked up to him slowly.

"So, William," she said. Stopped. Cleared her throat. "Ghosts…"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic is cursed and, therefore, on hiatus until further notice. Although the plot is fully mapped out, so I hope to pick it up again one day


End file.
